Moon Struck: When Were & Howl Book 1

When, Were, & Howl

  Episode 1: Moon Struck

  Jeanette Raleigh

  Copyright by Jeanette Raleigh

  May 5, 2011, Revised March 3, 2014

  All rights reserved. Written permission from the author must be secured to use or reproduce any part of this book except for brief excerpts to provide critical review or articles.

  Books by Jeanette Raleigh

  The Zombie Cowboy Two-Step

  Death Knell (as J.B. Raleigh)

  Dark Visions: First Love

  When, Were, & Howl: Bundled Episodes 1, 2, & 3 (Each Episode is Novelette Length)

  When, Were, & Howl 1: Moon Struck

  When, Were, & Howl 2 : Vampires Bite

  When, Were, & Howl 3: A Tryst of Fate

  When, Were, & Howl 4: A Grave Awakening

  When, Were, & Howl 5: Werewolf Wedding

  When Were & Howl: A Very M-Were-y Christmas

  Fallen: A Steampunk Novel

  Chapter 1

  After a full moon weekend spent locked in the closet for my own safety, I walked into the office on Monday morning to find my monitor broken on the floor with stapler, desk caddy, and papers strewn about. A sane person would think the office had been broken into. A sane person would be wrong.

  I clamped down on my anxiety and tried to think of where to start. My brain was still in a muddle while I came down from my animal high. The full moon doesn’t lend itself to clear thinking. That’s when I heard the noise.

  The first sound was a growl, low and deep. That would be my boss, in his office doing…well. I might have been afraid hearing that kind of growl but for the hard bumps that followed and the whine. The man sounded like a wolf even in human form.

  Then I heard sloshing kiss sounds and moans, feminine. His moon tryst was still in the office at ten o-clock in the morning?!! I felt a few pity tears rise up and pushed them down hard. No way would Rob see me crying at work. No way in hellooooo…what was that on my desk?

  I stepped over my upside-down inbox and stared at the desk, my desk. Claw marks gouged along the top and a few wolf hairs stuck on the corner where someone had chewed up the leg of the desk. I swallowed rage when the woman in the adjoining office giggled. Would this be the rest of my life? I spend the moon night locked away, panicked and terrified only to walk into an office that smelled of wet fur. To top it all off, I have to deal with THIS?

  The tears started to flow then, and I grabbed my purse and headed for the door. Rob could do without me for the day. The real estate market had tanked so hard, he could probably do without me for the year, maybe even the decade. Another growl and a giggle and I couldn’t get out fast enough.

  I must have made noise opening the door because just as I was slipping out, a deep voice bellowed. “Jen, is that you out there?”

  Sighing and wiping my face, I smiled just to give my voice the impression that I was in a good mood and called out with as bright a cheer as I could muster. “I’m here.”

  I heard the sounds of whispered voices and furniture moving. That would be Rob, no doubt looking for his pants or shirt or underwear. After a few seconds, muffled laughter as the woman no doubt realized how badly ripped up her clothes had become. This isn’t the first time Rob brought the full moon to the office. But this was the first time I had a front row seat.

  Apparently sex on a desk is much more thrilling than out on the lawn. Of all the weres, wolves tend to release more pheromones than the average shifter and are often found humping the nearest leg when it comes to changing shape. I’m not being fair. I’ve never actually seen a werewolf hump a leg. I’ve just seen and smelled the office once Rob has finished with it after a full moon.

  Rob opened the door, letting the slight blonde with disheveled hair walk out first. That’s being too polite—she looked like she put a finger in an electrical outlet. Chivalry is not dead. I think he was hiding behind her. Her blouse was a button off and the woman had to hold the collar to keep her breasts from falling out. I would no doubt find that button when I helped Rob clean his office.

  “Hi Jen.” Rob smiled, a sweet sheepish smile that would have melted any anger I might have felt on an everyday normal kind of day. Not today. I started shaking, speechless, afraid that if I did say a word, it would start with tears and end with throwing sharp or breakable objects in the general direction of Rob’s head. When I didn’t answer, Rob said, “I’m really sorry about your desk. Full moon. You know how it gets sometimes.”

  Only I didn’t know. I really didn’t. I pretended because the alternative was to humiliate myself and tell Rob what kind of animal-were I was.

  I nodded and looked away. The woman looked at me somewhat proud and embarrassed all at once and said, “Call me.”

  Rob glanced from her to me in silence.

  The woman frowned when she noticed.

  Staking her claim, she grabbed the lapels of his disheveled shirt and pulled him to her, throwing her lips on his. If I weren't so angry, I might have been impressed. I cleared my throat. Rob glance sideways over her head with a raised eyebrow, and I got the distinct impression he was showing off or something. Was he trying to make me jealous? Because it was so working.

  I averted my eyes before the simple liplock could turn into a potential replay of the office demolition, but Rob gently set his hands on her shoulders and pushed her firmly away.

  The woman giggled and Rob said, “Take care.” Which in wolf terms meant, Goodbye and don’t expect a call.

  After the woman left, I stared at the desk. “Rob, you…” I broke off. I’d seen Rob’s office demolished a half dozen times over the past few years, but this was the first time for my desk.

  “Only once.” Rob wore a button-up short sleeve shirt, slightly wrinkled and deep blue which showed off his arms and shoulders. Rob had that classic handsome look, and all that howling at the moon kept him in shape.

  Speaking had become difficult with the ache in my throat which was sure to give way to the flood of tears hovering in the back ground. Rob would ask why and in no way would I answer. I knelt by the desk, turning my back to him and started to pick up papers with a rage that left my hands shaking.

  Rob knelt beside me, picking up a stapler and a pile of folders. His previous happy smile darkened now to concern. I didn’t mean to make him feel bad. I mean last night was probably one of the best nights of his life and I shouldn’t take it out on him. I just hated that most weres were totally free on moon nights while some of us weren’t. And I had a crush on Rob that I’d been trying to get over since the day I was hired.

  Rob put a hand over mine as I righted a plastic bin. “Are you okay?”

  I started bawling. Not a light polite shedding of tears. They all came out at once. These were not sad tears. Not at all. Sometimes a woman cries anger when she can’t strike out. I didn’t want to hurt Rob. It’s just that the office had always been a place that was mine, where I wasn’t judged for being what I am. I never felt embarrassed with Rob. Sniffling, I said with sharp biting words. “Did you have sex on my desk?”

  I couldn’t tell Rob the other half—how jealous I was of the beautiful werewolves he paraded into the office. Why should I want him anyway?

  “No. Of course not.”

  “Fine.” I spat the words out as the tears rose again.

  “Jen, we need to talk.” Rob really didn’t like to talk. So when he said that, I knew it was a concession to the fact that I needed to talk. Rob was raised a gentleman even if he didn’t pull it off himself three days out of the month.

  We found an unlittered space on the floor and sat with our backs to the wall, the way children would sit. Weres tend to be less fo
rmal than non-were adults. I’ve always wanted to ask certain questions about things like that but then someone would start asking a few questions of their own. And I didn't admit to being a mouse, not anymore.

  “What’s going on? I’ve never seen you this unhappy before?” Rob looked comfortable on the floor, even after a night of rough sex. Usually I’m better at hiding my dissatisfaction with his choice in women. Of course, usually they were gone by the time I arrived.

  “Nothing. I’m just having a bad day.”

  “My last assistant enjoyed late Moon-days.” That’s what the weres called the morning-afters. Everyone tended to sleep in.

  “Was she a were, too?” I always wondered about Rob’s last assistant. Rob trained me in the job himself, so I figured her departure was fairly abrupt.

  “A wolf, like me.” Rob chuckled. “Sometimes she called in the next day. Not often enough for me to say anything about it.”

  “Maybe one of these days I’ll call in and see how you like cleaning the office by yourself.” If I sounded bitter, I think in this case I had a right to be. Had Rob’s desk been marked by another were the way mine was, he would have thrown it out and bought a new one. I contemplated doing my work on the floor.

  Rob looked hurt. I didn’t even feel guilty, I was still so mad. What he said next really threw me. “I know you’re a were too.”

  “What?” I squeaked. I thought I had hidden it from everyone except my family and closest friends.

  “Helloo? Werewolf? I can smell it on you, but I can’t quite place the animal. You don’t seem to enjoy it much. You should get out and live a little.”

  My face flamed with shame. I thought about giving my notice, but Rob was already doing me a favor by keeping me on. We hadn’t sold a house all month and spent most of the day playing the stock market with what Rob called Monopoly money. It was his play money, real enough, and he played to win. I actually loved my job. But now I wondered when I would leave. It was a matter of time before he found out the rest. I would never be able to live that down. Not with a wolf.

  Shrugging, I told a half-truth. “It's got nothing to do with being a were. My grandma wants us all to come over to dinner Saturday. I just dread it and didn’t really enjoy the weekend.”

  Rob looked relieved that the blame for my mood didn’t rest solely on his shoulders. “Oh, well, that’s easy enough. Don’t go.”

  “I’ve learned the hard way not to avoid family functions. Grandma took special pleasure in bringing the whole family to my two bedroom apartment one weekend when I didn’t show for one of her family gatherings.”

  “You’re kidding!” Rob’s thousand-watt grin made me smile in spite of myself.

  “Not at all. I was legitimately sick and while I’d heard stories from my parents about missing family night, I was the first to learn that this kind of treatment was generational.”

  “Your family certainly sounds like wolves. Mine is close, too.”

  “Close? The matriarchs in my family are control freaks with nothing better to do than make their progeny suffer.” My anger burnt out, I sighed and rubbed my eyes.

  “Are we good?” Rob had used his allotment of words for the day.

  “We’re good.” I wanted to clean up before unlocking the office. Many of our customers were shifters, and while everyone else adjusted to the special hours without much fuss, having anyone walk into an office that looked ransacked was an embarrassment we could do without.

  I nodded. “Can I have a new desk? Maybe we can keep this one as a spare for the next time you go crazy?”

  Rob’s eyes crinkled and I found my heart in my throat. Falling in love with the boss is a bad idea. In case I didn’t get it, I reminded myself again by peering at the mess in the room. “We can go late this afternoon. We’ll have to get you a new monitor anyway.” Rob cleared his throat, looking at the one sideways on the floor. I’ve actually got a table cover you can use in the meantime if you want.”

  When he admitted this, my eyes jerked up at him. “You have a table-cover for the desks? This isn’t the first time?” He buys used monitors at a tiny independent computer store around the corner knowing they’re wolf fodder and has a mini-server in the coat closet for his own computer so he won’t accidentally destroy it. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by the tablecloth.

  It was Rob’s cheeks on fire this time. “I’ve tried to be careful with your desk. I…” Rob was at a loss for words.

  “Is that why your last admin quit?”

  “She smelled so good. Every time I walked into the office with my girlfriends, I seemed to find her desk the most suitable. I mean, it was just a piece of furniture.”

  “One she worked at every day.” I retorted. Rob's blue eyes widened every so slightly, and somehow he managed to look ashamed and amused at the same time. “The tablecover will cover the scratches.”

  “Are you sure? If it smells or anything, we’ll go to the furniture store and get you a replacement right away. I have a one o-clock appointment and want to get the office in shape before then, but maybe we can slip time in to go desk shopping before.”

  “You're a werewolf. You know it smells. And see? You left some of your fur behind.”

  “Okay, we can fit a trip into our schedule.”

  “Hey, I know about all your appointments and you don’t have anything on the calendar.” Rob wasn’t the sort to lie, so I believed him. It’s just that I’m his assistant and with the lack of business we’d been having, you’d think I’d know.

  “I met someone in the market for a house last night. Not to worry. He’s were-friendly.”

  “We’d better get the office in shape then. I really would like that new desk before we have visitors.” I couldn’t believe anyone would sit at a desk with Rob’s wolf scent all over it, especially a person with such an evolved sense of smell, but it occurred to me that the previous assistant perhaps knew Rob’s weaknesses and played on them, maybe even enjoying his scent.

  I imagined her rubbing her own scent on the desk near wolf time and driving him crazy. If I changed into a descent animal, I’d consider the same thing. That's a lie. I wouldn't really. I’m too much of a prude, but the idea is thrilling.

  Speaking of scent, I may not be a wolf with extraordinary olfactory nerves, but Rob smells good, a spicy warmth that envelopes the office. There is no way I’m going to work at a desk that Rob's been near. Even mice go into heat.